Not trying to do anything to get attention ourselves. This is all for Pophead and Caroline. We're just using a quick and easy means to make it happen. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do this.

Both schools my kids attend are having children begin classes who are from New Orleans. There was a job fair today in Huntsville at the Civic Center only for those affected by the hurricane. Both our hospitals in town are taking in patients from the coast. My sister-in-law is a nurse in one of the hospitals and she found out today that she is now on "disaster alert" so that if patients come in badly wounded needing asssistance, the staff is on call to meet the demand. Our humane society is even bringing in rescued animals of all breeds and sending them out to foster homes until whenever/if ever their owners are located. My sister-in-law is taking in two dachshunds soon. I just never knew Huntsville would be this involved in helping people touched by this disaster.

But helping Pophead is something near and dear to my heart. I can't describe it, but I'm just glad that we have the means to make it happen. I can't thank you all enough who have helped contribute.

Sir: I wonder how Bruce Anderson would respond to waking up one morning and finding that he had become black overnight ("New Orleans was responsible for its own fate", 5 September). But a mere change in skin colour wouldn't be enough; to be truly black he'd need a "historic past" as well. This, his article rather condescendingly admits, would have been "painful" during the years of "involuntary immigration"(!). As a black man he would be aware that well into 20th century black children had to face fire hoses and police dogs in their fight for a decent education, and that adults were murdered for trying to register to vote.

The fact that black people were brought over to America as an involuntary work force, and were either brutally victimised or totally abandoned thereafter remains the rotting corpse in the closet dramatically uncovered when Katrina ripped off the rooftops of New Orleans. As the diaries of many slaveowners of the time admit, the country could not have got started without black labour. Slavery was successfully abolished only when it was considered unfair competition (being unpaid) to white labour, which was waged. The conflict between black and white workers has corroded American economics ever since.

The Kerner Commission, convened by Lyndon Johnson, conducted a thorough investigation into these matters and concluded that "the US is moving towards two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal". There are many who think that these problems have now been largely solved. They haven't. And Mr Anderson is resorting to the laziest tactic of all: blaming the victims.

VILMA SCOTT

LONDON N19

Sir: I don't know why Independent readers should be taken aback by Bruce Anderson's "heartless"response to the desperate circumstances of those hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina (letters, 6 September). A few weeks ago he was claiming that Jean Charles de Menezes was the author of his own misfortune for allowing himself to be shot eight times by armed police on the Tube, on the grounds that he had not been keeping up with current affairs!

Claiming that the victims are the authors of their own misfortune is a basic tenet of the right-wing ideology Anderson espouses. It offers a simple-minded justification for the appalling levels of inequality that the hurricane has laid bare.

CHARLES HOPKINS

NORWICH

Sir: How refreshing it was to read Bruce Anderson's comment on the causes of the New Orleans disaster. In one column he dismisses the vast body of peer-reviewed research supporting global warming, whilst claiming as valid his entirely groundless suspicions that 90 per cent of the looters came from one-parent families. In this way he undermines his argument and reveals the prejudice at its heart more effectively than I could ever have done.

KATHARINE LINDSELL

LONDON N10

Sir: I usually dislike Anderson's pieces but sometimes he does get part of it right. Earlier this year (8 March) you ran a report about motivational classes being offered to Caribbean boys at an inner London school which was designed to help them reject the notion that it is "uncool" to enjoy school.

To have prestige among your fellows requires you to be "cool" and you cannot be "cool" if you are seen to take school seriously and work at your studies. It may be that Anderson is right and that there is in certain cultures some serious antipathy to work. This needs detached investigation, not the yah-boo reaction that Anderson's piece has had.

DUDLEY DEAN

MARESFIELD, EAST SUSSEX

Sir: In the past I have supported appeals for the victims of the Twin Towers outrage and the more recent London bombings, but the appeal for funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina is an appeal too far. This request for funds to do the job that the bellicose President Bush has patently refused to do is completely out of order.

Money that had been earmarked for the much-needed strengthening of the New Orleans flood protection was diverted by this battle-hungry politician to help pay for his misguided war in Iraq. The result: he tries to call a much-heralded natural disaster an act of God so that the insurance companies that have supported his political aspirations won't have to pay up and be forced to protect their funds by taking the administration to court.

I applaud the British Red Cross for its humane efforts, but I for one will not be adding to its funds on this occasion. To do so would, in my view, only help diminish the responsibilities of a President who has shown himself to be not only lacking in morals, but unfit to be leader of the richest country in the world.

NICK MENDES

DROITWICH SPA WORCESTERSHIRE

Sir: The situation in New Orleans shows what can happen when obsessive and paranoid leaders ignore warnings and waste billions on reckless projects instead of looking after ordinary people. With this in mind, will Tony Blair reconsider his plans to introduce a compulsory identity card scheme?

Give me a break! These people are utterly devoid of good sense. Colloquially, they are a few french fries short of a Happy Meal.

You can't blame a hurricane on anybody. You can't blame any issues with the post-event reaction on a single person. Resources are spread thin across a wide area. There is plenty of room for improvement but let's focus on the issue at hand which is tending to those in need.

I apologize if this has been posted, but I thought it was very well written.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans published this open letter to President Bush, condemning the poor federal response and disputing claims from top Federal Emergency Management Administration officials:
We're angry, Mr. President

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, “What is not working, we’re going to make it right.”

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a “Today” show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher.

The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: “Buses! And gas!” Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.”

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.

Why is the president responsible for a natural disaster that none of the greek gods could prevent? Even if he issued an evacuation, do you think it would really have changed anything? I don't think you can blame any 1 person for this incident. I know many New Orleans need to point a finger at somebody when all they have is gone, but the truth is that nature prevails over all and this was bound to happen. Nothing you can do about it.

Preacher was a talkin' there's a sermon he gave,
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied

Extreme Honey wrote:Why is the president responsible for a natural disaster that none of the greek gods could prevent? Even if he issued an evacuation, do you think it would really have changed anything? I don't think you can blame any 1 person for this incident. I know many New Orleans need to point a finger at somebody when all they have is gone, but the truth is that nature prevails over all and this was bound to happen. Nothing you can do about it.

Nobody is claiming that Bush is responsible for weather phenomena. It's the slow response, both on a federal and local level, that is in question. Not to mention the fact that Bush and his crew seemed more interested in congratulating each other on the terrific job they were doing rather than rolling up their sleeves and helping the people most in need.

It's like if it were raining and there was an old woman with health problems stuck outside. Would you invite her in or give her an umbrella, or keep shouting from inside "Help is coming in a few days!" That's what this is an issue of.. at this point weather is a small part of the issue.

This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.

I am equally angry with nature, with civil engineers, with local, state, and federal government in terms of their a priori attention to this situation (never a matter of "if" but a matter of "when").

The Federal Government proclaimed the area hit by Katrina a Federal Disaster area on August 27th, approximaely one day before it hit the coast. This means that Federal Disaster relief funds are available FOR THE ASKING BY STATE OFFICIALS. This does NOT absolve the federal government nor provide a convenient excuse for them. They acted shamefully. But, read on for at least a modicum of balance. It is important to understand that they seemed to grasp the potential severity of the problem before those who live there did.

The Local and State Governments did not ask, evidently thinking it was an overreaction and that "it can't happen here". The Governer fled to higher ground, and it took a telephone call from the President's Office to explain the steps that she needed to take in order to mobilize the resources. The steps she needed to take as governor to ASK. She did not know the procedure. I understand that call was made on Wednesday morning of last week. If you have information counter to this, please illuminate so that the story can be correct.

It is AGAINST FEDERAL LAW to mobilize the national guard across state borders without the request from the governor of that state, or approved delegate thereof. Restated. If the Federal Government would have mobilized troops immediately while they were searching for the governor, they would have been in violation of laws that have been ratified only with the approval of the States. Again, a strong Commander in Chief would have jumped on this with a more proactive response. This points out a flaw in our disaster preparedness...an obvious one. If a nuclear warhead wipes out a state government, am I to then believe that the federal government cannot act? Nonsense. But where is the line? That will be a hotly debated topic, especially when you have a contingent of governors who demand state autonomy and rue federal overruling of the decisions that are designated to be made at the state level.

What has homeland security done since 2001 to prepare for these emergencies of gargantuan proportion. There should be a process. Even if the argument is that Homeland Security has the core function of protecting from foriegn invasion, how does the devastation of this storm differ from the fallout of an invasion and an attack. Communications went down. Everything went down. Was there a procedure? Was it simply ignored?

FEMA's Brown is a facade, a joke. His appointment to that position is a complete travesty. Bush has made a critical, critical error by throwing ANY support to him. Brownie is a boob who should have stuck to his position as an equistrian business officer. He should have been fired by now, and a real field commander should be VIP promoted by the President to handle this. If Bush continues to support "Brownie" he will deserve more of the scorn and ridicule than he probably deserves. But make no mistake, he deserves his fair share.

I respect Pophead2k's admiration for the Mayor, but man-oh-man, the documented record on the guys actions before, during, and after the storm sure paint an ugly picture. I defer to Pophead's support on this, because I only have press reports to go on, and Pophead lived it.

For the record, the global warming argument is total bunk in terms of as as a source of blame for the intensity of this storm, and there is an evidence base to prove it.

These are semi-educated opinions. That's all. My prayers and support continue to go out to all of the victims of this natural disaster, compounded by a feeble response. Now that things are 'clicking', improvements are quantum. BUT, it will be interesting to try to find an objective assessment of how many lives were lost as a direct consequence of the response. Many will quantify it, but always with an agenda. We do know one thing...that more than one additional life was lost because of the poor response at the federal, state, and local levels.

And that is one two too many.

Last edited by Mr. Average on Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)

Mr. Average wrote:I am equally angry with nature, with civil engineers, with local, state, and federal government in terms of their a priori attention to this situation (never a matter of "if" but a matter of "when").

Our infrastructure is crumbling and yet we're wasting billions overseas to reconstruct a country whose people don't even want us there. What's wrong with this picture? What does Bush care about more - Iraq's oil reserves or his own citizens?

There's no way for the Republicans to sugar-coat this one - W fucked up. I can only imagine the indignation from conservatives iif Clinton had decided to sleepwalk through a disaster in the way that Bush has.

I consider the response to the Hurricane and the War against Extremist Islam to be two different things, with two different outcomes to consider. Totally different outcomes.

It is a stretch, and a mistake, in my opinion, to argue for or against one by leveraging the other. Two different things with two totally different meanings to the future of our children and our children's children, and the sanctity of Freedom.

"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)

Mr. Average wrote:I consider the response to the Hurricane and the War against Extremist Islam to be two different things, with two different outcomes to consider. Totally different outcomes.

It is a stretch, and a mistake, in my opinion, to argue for or against one by leveraging the other. Two different things with two totally different meanings to the future of our children and our children's children, and the sanctity of Freedom.

But the money to pay for these things comes out of the same big pot. It's a question of allocation of resources. This country's going to shit while Bush spends more and more money on a war that looks more and more hopeless.

Besides, as I said before, our exploits in Iraq are, IMO, making my children less safe. As for freedom (or at least our definition of it), if Iraqis don't want it or understand it, I don't see why we should impose it on them.

Away from the partying it was obvious to a dedicated follower of the city that disaster was around the corner

I SPENT the early part of last year in New Orleans recovering from gunshot wounds received as I was being robbed. It happened in the early evening as I walked down a quiet street with my girlfriend. There was a football game in town and the streets near the French Quarter were empty. The police presence was elsewhere. The incident itself was over in a flash but it plays over and over in my head and perhaps one day it will make sense to me.

I found out later that there were fewer than 2,000 police in New Orleans at that time and it reached such a point that there was talk of the city was importing officers from Cleveland. Anyway, thanks to someone’s mobile phone, the police eventually got to the scene.

Later, as I was carried into the emergency room at Charity hospital, a doctor reassured me that “New Orleans really is the best place to get shot”. They had, he explained, had plenty of practice.

The same week I was shot, I read that three other tourists were killed near to where I was attacked. Tourists were urged not to fight back after being mugged (I was continually reminded of this by the district attorney’s officials, who were critical of the way I chased the man who robbed my girlfriend).

There were additional complications to my injuries and my gunshot wounds were not as clean as first thought. Before I was taken in for my first operation, a priest came and gave me a little spiritual assistance. Later I was even serenaded by a nurse who whispered slow, mournful gospel songs in the style of Mahalia Jackson.

During my initial week-long stay in hospital and lengthy recuperation, I observed first-hand the bankruptcy of the New Orleans health system. Several doctors who treated me actually apologised for the low standard of healthcare in Louisiana. Even so, they gave me the best of what they did have, for which I am grateful.

I have just looked through some notes in the diary I made after I was operated on and one seems chillingly relevant. “How can the USA be expected to look after the whole world when it cannot even look after its own?” So it doesn’t surprise me to see the world reacting with shock to the “Third World” conditions in New Orleans “in this, the richest and most powerful country in the world”. I could have told them that.

But I have been astonished by the reactions and apparent shame of some of the US television reporters who seemed overwhelmed to discover that there actually is poverty in America. They made me want to grab my television and shout “Hello, dear reporter, yes, America actually does have poor and underprivileged people as well. Hello, yes, the President might well be slow to react but at times like this, that’s all that an over-burdened, out-of-touch president can be.”

After watching the scenes on television in the past few days, it occurred to me that if any place in the world could survive this catastrophe, it would be New Orleans. Significantly, in the most deprived parts of the city, there are churches and Gospel halls. Faith has to be strong because often it is all most of the people have.

When I was last in New Orleans, I was driven around the city by a friend who pointed out the pump houses that seemed antiquated to me even then. The levees seemed insufficient for the amount of water surrounding the city. The roads were uneven and the tap water pressure in most houses was weak. The whole system appeared improvised, but according to my friend it all “seemed to have worked well enough so far given that there is not enough funding to improve it ”. Locals would joke: “Yep, it is like the Third World but, hey, this is N’Awlins. Nothin’s perfect. That’s what’s so great about it.”

I agreed but deep down I felt the whole infrastructure was very fragile. New Orleans is a party town, after all, and when tourists walk down Bourbon Street drinking frozen Daiquiri during Jazz Fest, crime, unemployment and environmental issues are far from their minds.

It was clear to me, however, that away from all the festivities something disastrous was on the cards. Too many things pointed in that direction. Why didn’t the people who are supposed to be experts on this stuff react sooner? The problem we all know by now is money. Budgets. America’s preoccupation with wars overseas. Nobody cares about the poor. Etc, etc.

At the time of my shooting I was trying to develop a musical event for a local school in New Orleans to raise funds for instruments and new uniforms for them to wear at Mardi Gras. Music, particularly in the school marching bands, gives many of the kids down there an opportunity to participate in the local community. This in turn raises their expectations and it is to be hoped, stops them descending into the local drug and gang culture waiting around the corner. I was due back later in the year to put on a show for Thanksgiving to raise a few extra bucks for the community. This all seems so trivial now.

But the reality is that without its music New Orleans would have been a forgotten city long ago. The music of the American South inspired me and helped to shape me as a musician. They say that jazz started on Perdido Street in New Orleans and even Louis Armstrong honed his trade in the honky-tonks on Bourbon Street.

I owe as much to music of the Southern states as I do to the British music that inspired me. If New Orleans is allowed to die, a crucial part of the world’s musical heritage will disappear.

Right now, the flooded streets of New Orleans might seem just an American responsibility but sometimes even the most powerful people need help. Whatever we think of George W. Bush we cannot take it out on the poor and needy in Louisiana and Mississippi. (He won’t be there in four years — they will.) Numerous people befriended me while I was there. Gradually, word is getting back to me that they are safe. One friend made it to Dallas with her family. Others are now scattered across the South: Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis. One musician friend is still missing.

I think about what has happened to some of the faceless, scary “neighbours” who kept me awake at night while they partied and chanted songs on the corner of St Claude and Governor Nichols when I last stayed there. I hope they made it.

And lastly, I think about the bicycle I left behind. New Orleans is almost entirely flat — as the world knows all too well now — and I found that a bike ride was a great way to get around while strengthening my injured leg.

When I left last year I forgot to put the padlock on my bike. Whoever took it, I pray that they get to ride it around the French Quarter again soon.

Mr. Average wrote:FEMA's Brown is a facade, a joke. His appointment to that position is a complete travesty.

Oh my God (pinching self). Mr. A said something with which I agree without reservations or qualifications.

Omigosh, I better start proofreading and editing my posts with more care. I'm not sure what the above message will do to my reputation as the resident lunatic Christian Conservative, blindly following all things right like a good little red sheep.

However, I can be fair, and I even have a reputation for being honest. And in all fairness and honesty, President Bush is disappointing me on a number of fronts. With regards to Katrina, the Federal Government is the machinery that should be the target of SOME of the derision and blame. While it is easy to say that Federal Government = George Bush, that oversimplification is comical on its face, and I think most right-thinking people agree. BUT, the President is the Commander in Chief, and AFTER the state, local, and federal agencies who are mandated to handle this have failed, the Commander in Chief has to be able to ACT IMMEDIATELY.
However, as concerns the war and the implications it has on the longterm stability of the United States, and on making the world a safer place for my children (you can't just hope this will happen whilst humming Kumbaya), I support the war...NOT ON IRAQ, but on the Extremist element of the Islamic faith. Should we have applied diplomacy with Emperor Hirohito in World War 2, do you think that the Kamikazee would have said, "Oh, what the hell...those westerners are okay dudes after all" and stop flying airplanes into ships? The idea that we are manufacturing the ideology of hate that has been the cornerstone of the islamic fundamentalist extremists for CENTURIES is nutty, in my opinion.

"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)

Mr. Average wrote:However, as concerns the war and the implications it has on the longterm stability of the United States, and on making the world a safer place for my children (you can't just hope this will happen whilst humming Kumbaya), I support the war...NOT ON IRAQ, but on the Extremist element of the Islamic faith.

I would agree with this - I just don't think that Iraq was the bastion of radical fundamentalism that the Bush folks would like us to believe it was (though it probably is now).

From all indications, it's pretty clear that Saddam's regime was much less dangerous (I'm speaking here of danger to the West, not Iraqi citizens or dissidents) than our "intelligence" assumed.

Mr. Average wrote:FEMA's Brown is a facade, a joke. His appointment to that position is a complete travesty.

Oh my God (pinching self). Mr. A said something with which I agree without reservations or qualifications.

Just read a piece about Brown's resume on Salon.com that is pretty staggering (see below). He was in no way qualified to be running a federal agency such as FEMA. Despite very dodgy legal credentials he was appointed as counsel at FEMA after losing his job at the International Arabian Horse Association!

The guy was barely fit to work as a greeter at Wal-Mart. It troubles me that someone like this could be appointed to such an important post. And where in the world were the Democrats when the Republicans were pushing this hack through the approval process? A lot of people have a lot to answer for:

The best man for the job?

Anyone who's paying attention knows three things about FEMA Director Michael Brown by now. He was fired from his old job at the International Arabian Horse Association. He didn't know there were people holed up in the New Orleans Convention Center despite the fact that the cable networks had been reporting it for days. And the president of the United States, who likes to call him "Brownie," thinks he's doing a "heck of a job."

Over at the New Republic, Paul Campos is filling in a few more details. As Campos explains, Brown got hired at FEMA because he was a longtime friend of Joe Allbaugh's, who got hired at FEMA because he was a longtime friend of George W. Bush's. But surely Brown had some serious qualifications for becoming FEMA's general counsel and eventually its director, right? He was an accomplished lawyer? A volunteer firefighter? He knew CPR?

Not exactly, Campos says.

Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he has done some digging into Brown's so-called legal career. Here's what he's found: "When Brown left the [International Arabian Horse Association] four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer -- a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the IAHA, he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of FEMA."

Scott McClellan won't say whether the president has confidence in Brown now. The real question is, why did he have confidence in him then?

However, as concerns the war and the implications it has on the longterm stability of the United States, and on making the world a safer place for my children (you can't just hope this will happen whilst humming Kumbaya), I support the war...NOT ON IRAQ, but on the Extremist element of the Islamic faith.

Okay, let's suppose America somehow MANAGAES to exterminate the Islamic Extremists. And all the converts that would folloe (which is cutting down a huge number of the Islamic population). Don't you think a new anti-American power will rise? Nothing in the world is new, and if you take out a shitload of Islamic Extremists or Islamics all the same, a new shitload of anti-american shit will take a big shit all over your nation. The Islamic Extremists responded to some trigger america did, something that you guys did to pull their hair, and now, instead of trying to spot the problems you are trying to wipe 'em out, with very little success. I'm not one to tell you that there's no hope left, not at all, but as long as you got some redneck goon and his goonsquad governing your nation, your children will never be safe. What to do? Revolt.

A big shout out to you and all of Canada for their incredible show of support for the victims of Katrina. Or maybe that was Mexico. Yes, it was Mexico. Come to think of it, I am not sure that Canada has done a damn thing.

Best of luck to your nation when misfortune befalls you.

And, as much as most Canadians like to ascribe all anti-terror to the USA, there are a few other reputable nations involved and devoted to the cause. Great nations.

Nations with healthcare systems that are not completely socialized and collapsing under thier own weight. Like France, and...Canada.

What the heck happened to the great Canada that I grew up understanding as our benevolent neighbors to the North?

Ohhhh Canadaaa

"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)

I was just in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd pop in to ask, as nicely as possible, if people could try to be nicer and not say such inflammatory things right now. Goading each other into turf wars over whose countries are the bestest only leads to contentious, bitter arguments from which the whole board fails to emerge unscathed. So pretty please with sugar on top, be nice. Either that or shut the fuck up.

Descartes is right. It only goes downhill from here; old wounds are reopened, broadsides are dispensed with reckless abandon, hostility spills over into unrelated threads, David Mamet stops writing plays, I wind up buying a copy of Michael McDonald's Motown, cats and dogs living together.....mass hysteria.